George Bellingham

On Friday, January 20th, Stepney Branch held a meeting at Whitechapel Library. The speaker, Comrade Cash, took as his subject, "Why I left the Communist Party." A large audience assembled, some of whom were Communists, who did their best by heckling and shouting to prevent the speaker getting a hearing. When the Chairman asked the leader of the disturbers to leave the meeting he (the Chairman) was threatened with a baton, and, for a while, pandemonium reigned. However, the Socialist Party members present proved themselves more than capable of dealing with the situation, and, in spite of this display of organised hooliganism, the meeting was a success, many people being turned away through lack of accommodation.

It is clear that the Socialist Party of Great Britain is beginning to make its influence felt in Stepney.

A few years ago splendid work was done in the provinces by a small party of London members touring from place to place. Apart from gaining new readers and sympathisers, and making the Party in areas where no propaganda has been carried on before, there is the very valuable encouragement such visits bring to provincial groups and isolated members.

On Friday, June 30th, a party of four - Comrades Bellingham, Turner, L. Otway and Mrs. Otway - left head office for a short motor tour, carrying camping equipment.

The first meeting was held in the Bull Ring at Birmingham, on June 30th, with an audience of 350, and literature sales of 2s. 11d. - a good start achieved against the obstacle of several rival meetings. Questions and Communist opposition were dealt with at considerable length.

'Radical Aristocrats: London Busworkers from the 1880s to the 1980s' by Ken Fuller (Lawrence & Wishart.

One of the myths about the Socialist Party, perpetuated mainly by historians sympathetic to the Labour Party or the now-defunct Communist Party, is that we are opposed to trade union activity (see review of Ernie Roberts's book p21). But the fact is that there are few unions, in the London area at least, whose history would not have to include, if only in a footnote, a reference to the role played by Socialist Party members.

During the past few months the Party has suffered severely at the hand of death, and we regret the loss of another propagandist, George Bellingham, who died in April, at the age of about 55.

His attention was directed to the Socialist movement during the early days of the War. The conduct of the Labour Party in its whole-hearted support of that slaughter, and the betrayal of the workers by the Trade Union leaders, prompted him to take a more active part in working-class affairs.